Victorian College of the Arts - Theses

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    for a conversation, now, sometimes, oops- oh no... sorry, i mean, somewhere… for a conversation, somewhere
    George, Samantha Kate ( 2023-11)
    This practice-led research asks: is it possible to hold a conversation in space forever? It suggests we can find and hold the materialisation of a conversation once it’s left the people that have had it. Over the course of this research, an important strategy became attempting to think not in time, but rather, in space. Thinking in space allowed the ability to wonder not when something was but where it is. In this project conversation has been utilised as inspiration, methodology and material. The exhibition at the Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery builds a space for a conversation to happen and a space where the remains of those conversations can stay. The project focuses on divine conversation, where the content and outcomes are not important, what is important is that two people share the desire to talk to each other. The space holds two performative representations of conversations. They are: (i) a continuous conversation, where over 50 participants take part to help hold a constant conversation over the duration of the exhibition. (ii) what you are doing, where two actors sporadically perform a scripted dialogue of the narration of their conversation, told through the other. Being inspired by thinking in space - the gallery turns into a piazza consisting of several elements holding these conversations: performance furniture which are structures for the performers and participants to engage with, being designed around places where the vibrations of a conversation might linger, like a horizon or a corner constructed from steel, paint and plywood. Object/Sculpture Characters, which are two operated neon lights, simulating day and night, and a water fountain constructed from steel concrete and water flowing help hold the particles of saliva from the conversations spoken. The dissertation shifts through poetry, comparisons to other artists and theorists, personal accounts and stories. It discusses the process of making this artwork, from its muses to the conversations had during the two years it took to realise the project and the materials used. The writing brings the artwork into conversation with: theorist Carlo Rovelli; writer bell hooks; playwright Caryl Churchill; artists Sophie Calle, Ragnar Kjartansson, Lisa Radford, Damiano Bertoli, and Gian Lorenzo Bernini; choreographers Simone Forti and Pina Bausch; performances by Forced Entertainment, Tino Seghal, Aphids, and Back to Back Theatre company; comedians Andy Kaufmam, Kurt Braunohler, and Kristen Schaal; and poet-artist Madeline Ginns and artist- architect Arakawa.
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    Three Act Plays
    Bailey, Matthew John ( 2021)
    Three Act Plays is a practice-led Master of Fine Arts (Visual Art) research project that considers how sculpture and performance combine to act as metaphor for audience/viewer relations. The research explores what it might mean to subjectivise or flatten these relationships within an interdisciplinary practice, and incorporates analysis of works that use cross disciplinary moments to further interrogate the discussion. Through sculptural and performance video works created throughout the research, the project seeks to elaborate upon definitions of the ‘backstage’, the ‘prop’, the ‘rehearsal’, and ‘the audience’ as a way to explore a space of inter-subjectivity. The dissertation addresses these tropes via a re-reading of Michael Fried’s influential 1967 essay ‘Art and Objecthood’, prompting a critical re-evaluation of the relationships between sculpture and performance.
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    Begotten, not made: availing and performed sites for a poetics of being
    Dyson, Greg ( 2013)
    This research has taken a practice-led form. The questions and issues are those arising in and through the practice of an artist working in live performance and were formed in and through personal, practical experience. The researching artist has undertaken a period of time- approximately two years- during which heuristic and creative data has been allowed to ascribe itself on various media and on the artist’s attending perceptions and responses. Seemingly disparate drawings, vocal and physical scores, text fragments and audio atmospheres were assembled and presented as a live creative work. The thesis presents an exegetical overview of the practices engaged and investigates the pathways common to arising and intentionality; their capacity to affirm and deny in the receiving artist’s experience and their capacity to conjoin the self with their intentions to abreact synergistic phenomena involved in the formation of imagined and actual poetic sites for their realisation.